white flag flying
from the tube of his instrument. Ere he could reach the gate, a gun
boomed out from the Castle, a round shot whizzed over the heads of the
summoners, and Haine roared at the top of his well-trained voice, "Come
back; it is a sufficient answer."

And so the fiery duet began--the batteries of the Churchyard sounding
daily in harmony with those of the Castle, whilst ever and anon a piece
of greater calibre roared its bass from the Town-hill.

Lempriere made haste to remove his wife and their sister from the noisy
alarms of war to their quiet home at Maufant, where he left them to
remove the traces of the usurper, and restore the old state of things
with the help of the steward and such of the farmers as had not died out
or left the country. One consequence of this removal was that Le Gallais
saw nothing of the ladies. His new duties kept him much at the
Brigadier's side; when not so employed, he was chiefly occupied with
Prynne, who was attracted by the turn of the young man's mind, more akin
to his own than that of the "hot gospellers," the "levellers," and the
professional soldiers by whom he was surrounded.

Meanwhile, the siege dragged slowly on, until one dark night in the end
of November an old acquaintance, Pierre Benoist, threw himself in the
way of a party of Carteret's scouts, who had come on the mainland and
were questing for intelligence or plunder. Taken before Sir George, he
was threatened with the doom of a prisoner-of-war, who was also a spy,
unless he would tell all that he knew. He asked for nothing better,
having got himself taken by the patrol for the express purpose of
furnishing the garrison grounds for an early surrender. Especially
pleased was the rogue when the Lieutenant-Governor pressed him to
explain the nature of a movement of the enemy upon the top of the
Town-hill, which had been perceived before nightfall; and of the cargo
landed at S. Aubin by a heavy-looking craft that had arrived in the
morning, and which seemed neither man-of-war nor trader.

"That I can tell you," said Benoist; "they are preparing engines for
your ruin. I saw the pieces landed, and drawn by oxen to the Mont de la
Ville. Two pieces of ordnance whereof each shot weighs four hundred
Jersey pounds, and takes ten pounds of powder to discharge. The like has
never been seen, and they will carry a ball from Mont Orgueil to the
coast of Prance. _Ver di!_"

Carteret laughed; but his laughter was only justi